The new London Edition hotel evokes moody, Belle Epoque glamour

Ingo Maurer’s polished-silver orb is suspended in the hotel’s main lobby.

Ian Schrager first set foot on Berners Street when launching the Sanderson Hotel in 2000. Now the hotelier is back on that same thoroughfare with the London Edition, his latest project developed with Marriott International. The building—five circa-1835 Georgian townhouses that were combined in 1908 as the Berners Hotel—is a shining example of Belle Epoque grandeur, and the Toronto firm Yabu Pushelberg was hired in 2010 to help take on the meticulous restoration. The designers preserved landmark details like stained-glass windows and marble floors, while Schrager and his team provided direction to the overall interior scheme. “Ian understands the zeitgeist [and] where things are going,” Glenn Pushelberg says of Schrager’s eclectic mixing of styles.

In the elegant lobby, furnishings range from formal to rustic, with Christian Liaigre black metal pieces alongside Salvador Dalí–inspired floor lamps and wood seating in the spirit of Donald Judd. A black walnut table with computers serves as a workstation, while the adjacent Berners Tavern is decorated with 185 contemporary photographs hung salon-style. A lobby bar and private club are also part of the package, but that’s where the nightlife vibe ends. “The guest rooms are refined,” says Pushelberg. “[The place] is not designed as a nightclub. That’s a stale notion of what a hotel should be.” Guests are instead seduced by modernist rooms lined with light-oak or dark-walnut paneling, and outfitted with George Smith slipper chairs and faux-fur throws.